BlackHat SEO has a reputation, and it’s usually not a good one. Those who practice so-called “blackhat” SEO techniques are often branded as social outcasts, treated by holier-than-thou “whitehat” SEOs and Google much like Hester Prynne in the “The Scarlet Letter”. Case in point: the recent SMX Advanced conference in Seattle apparently had a lot of blackhat emphasis this year, much to the shock and horror of some. A few high profile blog posts later, even Danny Sullivan, the event’s organizer, was pandering to the complaints, even apologizing. But is it really as evil and bad as it is made out to be?

I’ve been branching out and spending some time lately amongst the blackhat crowd, and it’s been a pretty cool experience for the most part. I think if I want to truly understand SEO and competitive ranking it is important to learn everything that I can - whitehat, blackhat, grey hat, I want to know it all.